The Westerners
Page 28
XXVIII
LAFOND GOES EAST
About the middle of February Lafond varied the monotony of his dailyprogramme. He ceased to visit the Great Snake camp, on which work wasproceeding as rapidly as ever, and took to writing letters. He wrote agreat many, and always mailed them himself with Blair, the driver ofthe stage. He announced one evening in the middle of March that he wasabout to leave for a short trip.
"I have the round to make," he said resignedly. "There are many placeswhich each year I must visit. I go to Deadwood, Spearfish, Custer,Sheridan, Edgemont, Rapid, Buffalo Gap, many others. I may be gone amonth."
"But yore comin' back, ain't you?" asked someone.
"But yes," assured the half-breed. "Have we not the opening of thedance hall?"
So the very next morning he boarded the stage for Rapid. At Rapid hebought a return ticket to Chicago. This was one of the results of thecorrespondence he had been carrying on for a month past. His firstletter had run about as follows:
"Mr. Frederick Stevens, Chicago.
"DEAR SIR--You will perhaps remember me as one of your hosts duringyour late visit to this camp. If you do, you will remember also that Iam interested financially, and so the good of the camp is my good. Youwill further recollect that I was present at the meeting held inKnapp's shack for the purpose of settling with him. For that reason Ihappen to know your plans and expectations. The expectations were thatyour first investment of fifty thousand dollars would complete theworks to a paying basis. I have no means of knowing the exact amountof Knapp's expenditures to now, but they must be considerable, and Ifeel that my interests and yours require that you know just what thereturns are.
"The results you should get with your fifty thousand dollars are, thatyou should have, on each claim, shafts to below water level withcross-cuts and drifts, a mill set up and ready, a pump and hoist oneach shaft, a month's fuel, a month's wages for men with food andexpenses and a camp in good working order.
"The shafts are almost done, but they are sunk on contract and are notpaid for yet. The mill is half up; there is one pump and two hoistsnot up yet. That is all that is done. It seemed to me Knapp has notspent his money well, because there is much about camp which he doesnot need.
"I tell you this because I am interested."
Here Black Mike paused and tapped his teeth thoughtfully with the endof his penholder. Then he smiled cynically to himself and went on--"Tospeak plainly, I think the waste has gone beyond what you can afford.Only a man living here and knowing mining well could make it pay. I donot ask you to believe this, but see for yourself how you stand, and Imay be able to make you an offer."
By return of post Lafond was frantically called upon to explain. Hedid so. Billy had been wasteful and extravagant. It was not Billy'sfault perhaps, but he was evidently not the man for the place. Lafondhad had but a vague idea of how things were going, but lately he hadbeen at more pains to gain an accurate knowledge of affairs. He hadfound things as above stated. He did not write at all as a friend ofthe Company, but because he believed he could perhaps make something bytaking the property himself. Instinctively the half-breed knew that aninsistence on his own selfishness was the surest way of impressingthese Easterners with his sincerity. For that reason he demanded hisexpenses when he was asked to go East for consultation.
The Chicago men were badly frightened. Lafond repeated clearly atgreater length what he had told them in his letters. It had been acase of a man unused to the handling of money. He insisted that inactual value there existed not one quarter of the sum Knapp hadexpended; and he further claimed that affairs were in such shape Westthat as much more would have to be invested before the mine could beput on a paying basis.
"Then," said he, "you have your cost of production and your campexpenses always. From your profits above them you have to make up whatKnapp has spent and what you will have to spend. That takes your closeattention and many years. For that I think you will not wish to goahead; and for that I come to make you an offer that will make it foryou not an entire loss. I do not ask that you believe me.Investigate."
"Would you be willing to wait here while we investigate?" asked Murphy.
"Always, for my expenses," replied Lafond calmly.
The Easterners consulted.
"Very well," said Stevens. "Call it that."
Lafond in the little room at his hotel looked at himself closely in theglass.
"A fool for luck! a fool for luck!" he cried at the imaged reflection,repeating his old formula.
Stevens was gone just ten days. Of course he said nothing of Lafond'spresence in Chicago. He had merely dropped in to look over theproperty, as was natural. Most of the men wondered why he had not doneso before. He was cordial to Billy, looked over what had been done,asked many questions, listened attentively to all Billy had to say anddeparted in the most friendly spirit. When he arrived in Chicago, hewent directly to his office in the Monadnock Building, where he hadalready assembled his associates by telegraph.
Stevens was brief, business-like and coldly impartial. In a man of hissort that indicated that he was very angry and chagrined.
"I have the following figures to submit," said he, taking up a paper."They are accurate, as I consulted with an expert as to the items offuture expense before leading Rapid.
10 horses at 105.00 . . . . . . . $1,050.00 10 sets harness at 60.00 . . . . . 600.00 Mill machinery . . . . . . . . . . 6,500.00 Pumps, hoists . . . . . . . . . . 1,250.00 4 months' wages at 4.00 a day . . 4,800.00 2 1/2 months' boarding expenses . 610.00 Hay, tools, implements . . . . . . 1,165.00 Wagons, household goods . . . . . 2,560.00 Miscellaneous . . . . . . . . . . 2,112.00 Building roads . . . . . . . . . . 829.00 ---------- $21,476.00
"That is what has been spent up to date according to Knapp's accounts."
"But hold on!" interjected Murphy; "he has drawn six drafts. Thatmakes thirty thousand. Has he eight thousand in hand? Why did he haveto draw the last draft?"
"He doesn't know," replied Stevens grimly. "His bank balance," hedeclared, consulting the paper again, "is just $1,126.40. He says hedoesn't know where the balance is."
"Do you think----?"
"Not at all. He is perfectly honest. That is the way he does things."
"Here," went on Stevens after a moment, "is what remains to be donebefore we can even start to work. It is an estimate, but it is a closeone; for, as I told you, I had assistance in making it out:
Mills, pumps, hoists . . . . . . . $12,000.00 Sheds, ore-dumps, etc . . . . . . 1,500.00 20 horses and harness . . . . . . 3,200.00 Men, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,000.00 Wagons and tools . . . . . . . . . 5,000.00 ---------- $26,700.00
That is to bring us up to the efficient working point. Now here areour liabilities:
Miscellaneous bills . . . . . . . $850.00 Contract on 1,100 feet of shaft and tunnel at 20 a foot . . . . . . . . . 22,000.00 ---------- $22,850.00
That is what we owe, gentlemen," concluded Stevens, slapping his paperson the table and looking about him. "Now if you want to throw goodmoney after bad, you can do so," he continued after a moment; "but thisis a limited liability company and I am done. I am strongly in favorof pulling out some way to save our names as promoters of such a foolenterprise, but I think we should pull out. This man Lafond thinks hecan do something with the property if he has a fair show, and perhapswe can save something through him. Our fifty thousand is _gone_--andmore, after we've paid our debt to those men--and anything we can saveout of such a mess seems to me clear gain."
And so with equal haste they scrambled out.
The first inexplicable phenomenon is the sanguine blindness such menshow in going into mining; the second is the headlong thoughtlessness
with which they draw out. Anything to get back to daylight apparently.
Again the parallel of the button-hook factory. In case of failurethese men would have first looked the ground over well for possibleretrenchment along the old lines of expenditure: that failing, theywould have examined closely for a possible new plan. But in thepresent case they never even conceived the possibility of any scale ofoperation different from that grand vision of eleven contiguous minesall going at full blast which Billy's vivid imagination had called intobeing. Lafond saw it clearly enough. Had he been so minded, he couldhave set the whole matter right; just as, if he had been so minded, hecould have turned the trend of Billy Knapp's extravagance with a littletimely advice.
"Gentlemen," he could have said, "has it ever occurred to you to starton a small scale and work up gradually to a larger? You can mine oneshaft on one claim with one cheap five-stamp mill. In that way youcould at least pay expenses from the very surface. After a little youcan pay more. Then you might open up another claim. That would taketime to be sure; but what business does not take time?"
His actual speech was of quite different tenor. When called before themeeting by a special messenger, and asked to name the terms he waswilling to offer, he replied quite simply--
"Fifteen thousand dollars."
This was, of course, quite unthinkable. An animated discussion ensued.
"We have spent over twenty thousand dollars," said Stevens, "and we owetwenty-six thousand more. Then the claims are worth something, surely.It would be better to hold the property just as it stands, on thechance of some future sale."
"Of the twenty thousand you have spent," retorted Lafond, "fifteen hasbeen spent uselessly. I mean not that it was all waste, but that if Ihad been running the mine I could have bought all I would need for fivethousand. And as for the twenty-six thousand you owe, what withbonuses for fast work and contracts at a high price, it ought all tohave been completed for fifteen thousand. And besides, if it was I whohad developed the property, I would not have sunk all these shaftsbefore making the mill to work. I would have my mine to pay before. Iam making you the offer of five thousand for the mine and ten thousandfor the works."
This argument carried some weight. It availed to induce an acceptanceof Lafond's final offer of five thousand cash, and the assumption ofthe twenty-six thousand debt. A man in his position and in hisbusiness could easily reduce the latter item.
"Of course this is merely informal," explained Stevens. "We have tocall a directors' meeting yet to take official action."
"We hold controlling interest," added Murphy, for the purpose ofreassuring Lafond.
"I understand," said the latter. "And now another thing. What are yougoing to do about the camp itself?"
Stevens hesitated. "I suppose we'll shut down and give Knapp hiswalking papers," he answered at last.
"That is just it. I want that you look out for my interests in that.If you shut down, that gives the camp a bad name, and a bad name is ofall things in the West the worst. And you know not that man Knapp.You discharge him. Eh, well? He is angry; he is without law; he isreckless. He is able to do that which he wishes. He can burn thebuildings, break the machinery. Who is it that will stop him? No,when Knapp is discharged, it must be that the deeds are in my hands, sothat I can protect my property."
All saw the justice of this argument.
"What would you suggest then?" asked the chairman.
"How is it that you intend to discharge him?" returned Lafond.
"What do you mean?"
"What is the formality? Do you just write and tell him he isdischarged?"
"Oh! No; we call a directors' meeting, and pass resolutions to thateffect, a copy of which we send him. We will do that at the same timewe authorize the sale to you."
Lafond drummed for a moment on the polished table near his hand.
"Eh, well," he announced at last, "let it be like this. When it isthat you have had your directors' meeting and have passed yourresolutions, then you send your copy to me, and I will give it toKnapp. Thus I will be on the ground to see that he makes no trouble.And at the same time you send the deeds to this man"--he rapidlyscribbled an address--"he is a notary public at Rapid. You will havetime to look up his reliability. He can hold the deeds until I pay tohim the five thousand dollars and sign a contract to take the debt wespoke of. Is that satisfactory?"
"Quite," they agreed.
"How long will it be before you finish your meetings?"
"Ten days. It takes a week's notice for a special meeting."
On the way to South Dakota again Lafond stared out of the windows withunseeing eyes in which lurked laughter. "Ten days," said he tohimself, passing the fingers of one hand softly over the palm of theother. His dark bearded face in the twilight lost its outlines againstthe upholstery of the Pullman. A nervous little bride on her weddingtrip to California grasped her husband's arm.
"What is it, dear?" inquired the latter.
"Foolishness," she laughed, a little forcedly. "But see that man'seyes. Aren't they uncanny?"
"Looks a bit like a maniac," admitted the groom, "but it's this queerlight. Odd fellow. Looks as if he might have one of those interestingWestern histories you read about."
"A fool for luck! A fool for luck!" Black Mike was repeating tohimself. "Ten days! I can fix the date for that dance-hall openingnow!"